SNP Ministers warned by civil servants against claiming they "lifted" 100,000 kids out of poverty
Civil servants have warned SNP Ministers about repeating their bogus claim to have “lifted” 100,000 children out of poverty. They issued the advice after the Government was pulled up by a UK statistics body on their language.
The 100,000 claim was first made by Humza Yousaf’s Government. The then First Minister declared in May: “I can hear the Conservatives saying that those anti-poverty measures are not working, but it is estimated that they will lift 100,000 children out of poverty this year, in stark contrast to what the Conservatives are doing.”
Days later, John Swinney said policies such as the Scottish Child Payment were “taking 100,000 children out of poverty today.”
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Social Justice Cabinet Secretary Shirley Anne-Somerville also said in June: “We have been able to demonstrate that we have lifted 100,000 children out of poverty through the Scottish Government’s actions.”
However, the claim was widely challenged as relative child poverty rates have remained broadly unchanged since the SNP swept to power in 2007. The UK Statistics Authority got involved and Ministers have since stopped making the “lifting” claim.
Documents released under freedom of information laws reveal civil servants told Ministers they should avoid this word: “This conclusion underlines the need to use and describe the modelling outcomes carefully – both in terms of describing it as “keeping” 100,000 out of poverty (not “lifting” we do not know the prior circumstances of families), and that it is a comparison against an alternative “counter-factual” world where SG polices are not in place, rather than the position prevailing in, say, 2007.”
Labour MSP Paul O’Kane said: “It should not take interventions from civil servants to reinforce to Scottish Government Ministers the importance of being accurate in their statements about tackling poverty. The reality is that despite its spin, the SNP government has failed to shift the dial on poverty levels in Scotland.
“The UK Labour Government are determined to deliver where the SNP has not. Labour is taking action to tackle the scourge of low pay and has already established our Child Poverty Taskforce, which will come to Scotland next month.”
Scottish Ministers now talk about their policies stopping more children falling into poverty, rather than kids being taken out of it. Swinney said in a recent speech: "We already have a strong track record of improving the lives of children across Scotland, including through our game-changing Scottish Child Payment and expansion of early learning and childcare. This government's policies are estimated to keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty this year."
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Modelling published in February estimates that Scottish Government policies will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty this year, with poverty levels 10 percentage points lower than they would have otherwise been in the absence of these policies. This includes keeping 60,000 children out of relative poverty through investment in the Scottish Child Payment.”
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